China's government is likely to stockpile a record volume of corn for state reserves in the current marketing year due to lower-than-expected demand, an official think-tank said. Beijing is likely to stockpile 60 million tonnes of corn by the end of April. It had already purchased 54.66 million tonnes by March 10, the China National Grain and Oils Information Centre (CNGOIC) said in a report on Friday.
The amount is in additional to about 30 million tonnes stockpiled during the 2012/13 marketing year. The estimated purchases were higher than earlier expected as outbreaks of bird flu hurt domestic demand for feed grain, prompting farmers to sell more to the government.
The centre also lowered estimated corn consumption by the animal feed industry to 119.5 million tonnes in the current marketing year ending September, down 4.5 million tonnes from last month's estimate, but still 6.2 percent higher than last year. Consumption by the processing industry, whose products include starch, syrup and alcohol, is seen at 52 million tonnes, flat from last year.
But the think-tank maintained its estimate for the country's corn imports at 5.5 million tonnes for 2013/14, up from 2.8 million tonnes in the previous year, noting imports were cheaper than domestic supplies. Beijing has rejected about 900,000 tonnes of corn from United States after detecting the presence of an unapproved genetically-modified organism (GMO), the country's quality watchdog said.
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